For Once, Mat Ishbia Makes Suns Fans Proud of Ownership

It's not often you see what Billionaire (with a B!) money looks like in person. 

Working in media, we're around multi-million dollar athletes on a consistent basis. There's not shortage of money anywhere in the NBA and that's obvious everywhere you look. 

Yet during the introductory press conference for Mat Ishbia, rows of assistants and various other personnel formed a wall around the President/CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage while he was officially named the new majority owner of the Phoenix Suns. 

Famous people have a clique they run with - Ishbia and other vastly wealthy people have rosters of people executing their roles with precision to ensure everything runs smoothly. 

“In my business, I’ve never focused on money. Success is the key, money always is followed. We’re not sitting here focused on money. Nobody cares about money. We’re focused on winning, community impact, culture and fan experience. And guess what happens? A lot of success follows. Money follows success, not the other way around.” - Mat Ishbia

For so long, Suns fans were under the stingy guidance of Robert Sarver, someone who refused to spend, barely attempted to integrate himself in the community and eventually was unveiled to have oversaw truly awful things within the organization for far too long. 

After years of Sarver refusing to put any further effort than minimal into the team, Ishbia quickly got to work. Roughly 12 hours after Ishbia was introduced, he and general manager James Jones struck a deal to land Kevin Durant in perhaps the biggest trade in franchise history. 

More change was on the way after the Suns were again bounced in the second round of the postseason. Head coach Monty Williams was sent packing and so too were players like Chris Paul to make room for Bradley Beal and others. 

Phoenix then gambled on talented veterans flocking to the team on minimal deals - and they won. Seemingly overnight, Ishbia's ability and willingness to inject money into the team helped re-tool the team. 

The Suns were once notorious for not spending. Now, only the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers rank ahead of Phoenix in terms of payroll/luxury tax according to Spotrac. 

Yet Ishbia has done more than move chess pieces around on the roster. 

Recently, the Suns gave away free antennas to fans (and quickly ran out) after announcing a revamped broadcast schedule that would feature 70 games available to fans on Arizona's Family Channel 3 during the 2023-24 regular season. 

Though out of their limited supply of free items, Suns fans can still get 20% off the antennas at this link.

Games are now more accessible than ever to fans, a primary goal for Ishbia when he first took over.